


The First Time Hera Saw Kanan Use The Force (and the Last Time)

by glittergrenade



Category: Star Wars: A New Dawn - John Jackson Miller, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Angst, Canon Major Character Death, Character Study, F/M, Odd tenses, The First Time..., forgive me on that, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-05
Updated: 2019-02-05
Packaged: 2019-10-23 00:52:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17673284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glittergrenade/pseuds/glittergrenade
Summary: The first time Hera saw Kanan use the Force, she didn't understand what it meant to him. It is so easy now to miss those times.





	The First Time Hera Saw Kanan Use The Force (and the Last Time)

**Author's Note:**

> This may be kind of awkwardly written; present tense but most of it is flashbacks, right? I don't know in what way that would be fixed aha but I hope its readable anyway.

The first time Hera first saw Kanan use the Force, it was to save her life. The huge metal defied physics as it stopped above her head, stopping her breath along with it, but there wasn't time to stare. She could see him. Back then, she could see that it was some sort of breakthrough for him personally, but she didn't know him well enough to understand.

Now, Hera knows that was a ginormous sacrifice for him. She knows that he was showing her a glimpse of the vulnerable part of his soul that he tried so hard to bury through booze and bar fights. It was then that there began a particular sense of awe, and a deep understanding between the two of them: an overpowering sense destined to last a lifetime. Kanan _is_ a Jedi — this smart-ass brawler is secretly a reluctant anti-imperialist god she's heard incredible stories about — and whether he wants to acknowledge that will be his choice… but, as relates to that haunting past, Hera is going to support him every step of the way. There is nothing that will push her away from him.

For now, there is still so much more distance to travel. Thus, time passes.

 

The second time Kanan used the Force in Hera's presence, the setting isn't nearly so dramatic. He was pacing restlessly in the _Ghost_ — and it was frustratingly close behind her pilot seat, although she respected his process currently too much to point it out — when a loud crash alerted her, like durasteel meeting standard glass within too few parsecs. It was alarming, in the quiet of hyperspace. Hera started.

Twisting in her seat — as if she weren't so unnerved right now she could punch him in the gut — her teeth slammed painfully on her own tongue when her eyes landed upon an indented Chopper hurled against the wall, just across from (of course) Kanan; who was no longer pacing, but with his arms shaking above his head. His jaw looked almost clenched, yet his chin quavers, individual hairs of his half-assed goatee flickering without wind to move them.

Chopper squawked, and his beeps sound way more bewildered than in pain, but automatically Hera was up on her feet, abandoning the rudder midflight as if it is no longer her passion (it will be forever, but she's more sensitive about her broken down astromech than she cares to admit). Her first instinct upon seeing the damage was to scold Kanan the way her father used to, demand what has made him think he has any right to behave as he does, with her little mech, but she's not her father. She had grown at this time to care a lot about Kanan, too, and gotten to know him about as well as he ever let anyone near him.

Regardless, since it was evidently Kanan's life goal to never ever ever use the Force again, even an unfortunate, albeit unexplained, use for it is nothing to discourage. If he has damaged Chopper, it was not his intention, since that would imply actively wielding the Force. In a Jedi, the Force is always present, and theoretically she understands a shock of anguish can bring it out of one. Looking at his face, Hera didn't have to be Force-sensitive to "sense" that he is in turmoil. She never does. Her heart went out to him, and she felt sad.

After the first moment of blank emotion, panic flitted across Kanan's face. Without stopping to gaze at it, Hera took a step forwards, pulling his body against hers and wrapping her arms firmly around him. _I've got you. You're okay._ He didn't lean into the hug — worrying in itself, considering how hard he seemed to normally clearly got the hots for her — but she continued holding onto him, tight but soothing, silently assuring him of her presence. He needed it… but she was unable to help him, and it breaks her heart every time she remembers. She didn't let go until he excused himself vocally to go hide in his room.

It breaks Hera's heart completely when she hears him cry, but she didn't follow him. She still had a ship to fly, and Chopper was beeping again in annoyance.

She knows now this is a sign of buildup from suffering from chronic nightmares. After weeks of trauma-disturbed sleep, it is difficult for him to deal with the life of charitable rebellion. Sometimes he tells her about his dreams. He dreams of his Jedi Master and the Temple on Coruscant and of Order 66. He says it was to survive, but she knows this is part of why he ever shut himself of from the Force.

 

The third time Hera witnessed the Force in Kanan, he was showing it to her much more willingly, calmly, like an expression of some sort of gratitude over her easygoing approach toward his eccentricities. Usually such a smooth-talker, Kanan now stuttered — but he claimed that being here with her, bringing help to people that need it — had resuscitated the sleeping Jedi in him. Much of his ramblings that followed went over her head, and a few times he mentioned something called "Caleb Dume," but what it clear to her is his concern about the moments when the Force does speak to him, though he strays far from what he was taught… and something about the Jedi Code and discipline, and the narrow but vital line between the Light Side and the Dark, and how big it all feels to him. If she hadn't been with him that whole day, she'd wonder if he was drunk, but as it stood, his words touched her. Apparently, Hera manages to inspire Kanan, too, in a way that motivates him to want to use the Force to continue to stick it to the Empire. It seemed on that day like he wanted to use his gift for this cause. She only knows now how big this conversation was for him, yet she still remembers every word.

She told him she believed in him with all her heart, and that she would continue to have his back on every mission awaiting whenever he would be ready to fully embrace his Jedi powers. She meant it from her soul, and Kanan shows her to this day that this was not a mistake. With the Force, he shows her that his time of readiness continues. It will never end.

With each day they grow ever closer. They always have each other's backs, and they are a team.

 

In the years that passed, he used the Force around Hera without reservation, if somewhat discreetly in battle at first. Often times she could see in his eyes that this is a great internal struggle, an uphill mountain; that the barrier that had kept him from touching the Force for so many years before hasn't disappeared by wishing it away. She doesn't press him faster than he goes, but rather chooses the route of steady support. He may never be over his loss, but she has lost things too. Grand resolutions are hard to live up to, and she would never punish him for his courage. The wait turned out worth it, and it was not long till she actually sees his lightsaber, which until now she hadn't been aware still existed. A few days later, he began to train with it. He practiced in her ship, his arm clearly remembering his old kata before his brain registers each move, and she witnessed his form grow stronger day by day. She guessed it will be a long while yet before he would go out full-Jedi into a firefight, but it is ever since taking up these activities, that he seems more genuine around her now. Happier, in more than a superficial way. He drinks less. He is an example of one's true self coming from the past, she pondered, even as he always faces the future. If her company and encouragement improves his confidence and gains his trust, she can have no objections.

If her company provides anything of good, she reflected a little dreamily, any objections from her were lately hard to come by around Kanan.

 

It was the closest they had ever gotten to a steamy night together when Kanan told her his full story. He had shared bits and pieces before, but has always shied away when it came to how he survived the Great Jedi Purge. It came very suddenly, almost out of the blue. This time Kanan actually was a little drunk, though that didn't make it any less real when he transformed the mood — and made her excited butterflies fade into a sudden plummet in the pit of her stomach — by saying Hera reminds him of his master.

Hera didn't mind… really. From her perspective, it is always a positive when Kanan is able to get some of his negative feelings out. It makes him far less difficult in general. He's one of the hardest people to get close to, out of any that she's attempted to know; and she conquered many hardships with Kanan in pursuit that goal, even before she discovered how much he meant to her. He has always been a massive charmer (although, it had not escaped Hera's triumphant notice that his flirting with other women long since diminished nearly to nothing), yet whenever it would get down to it with Hera, Kanan could never match the confidence of his boastful words.

Today, he cried. He told her she is the only one he's ever let himself cry to, and for some reason, she believed him. Much had changed about both of them since they first met, and Hera is no fool when it comes to men. He doesn't have to say it for her to know that he thinks he loves her. She thinks. She thinks about this a lot, even now. Love.

Kanan's master had given her life to save him from the Great Jedi Purge. It had been a long terrible road for Kanan to descend into becoming that damaged person he'd been when he'd first crossed paths with Hera — as long, perhaps, as it would take him to fully come out of it. But he is riding back out, steadily and surely, with her: and whenever Hera gazes into his eyes, she can see the endless potential of the man she now loves. She knows she can bring all this out in him. Kanan and Hera: they always bring out the best in each other. They are a team. Their trust for one another is full and without condition. She would follow him off a cliff's edge if he told her it was the right thing to do, and she knows that he would do the same for her.

So when one day the Force brought a sarcastic Lasat into their lives — yet another person who has lost everything he knew to the Empire — Hera was very conscious that she has eyes only for Kanan, knowing eyes, understanding eyes — and sympathy easily offered to the newcomer, as they welcomed Garazeb into her crew.

Hera, Kanan, Chopper, Zeb, Sabine, and Ezra. The team grew and they become the Spectres, just as they did her family. She loves them all, in that way. It is a close-knit, complicated life, but she will never forget the history she shares with Kanan, most of all.

 

The last time she sees him use the force is the day that everything has changed forever.

She is still woozy, from the Empire's interrogation drugs, but she never worries if they'll affect the baby. She is only happy, purely blissfully happy, even when she can't remember why.

Kanan has always been here for her, and it feels like he always will be. She cannot imagine life without him, and why should she? It is like they have been together, two halves of a whole, for longer than she can put a finger on. They always know each other's moves, each other's reactions, each other's touch. And yet, the truth remains, that they have never said "I love you."

She can't remember why. Maybe it is because their lives are constantly in motion, never static. Maybe it is because once they place a label on whatever it is existing is between them, expectations will arise, as if somehow that could steal from them the perfectly natural rhythm of their private wavelength.

Maybe it is because whenever they have ever dared love something is inevitably when it is stolen from them forever.

All these fears seem silly. There is no reason not to say what she knows. And he says it too. She can feel his fears literally melt away as she embraces him. As they kiss against the moonlit sky, she has never been happier.

She hears Ezra's amusedly sarcastic shout in the distance.

She hears imperial fliers, too.

Kanan uses the Force to save her.

The last time she saw Kanan use the Force is the day that Kanan died.

And now, all she feels is empty.


End file.
